


Habits are hard to break.

by literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte



Category: Everyman HYBRID
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Mild Gore, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 16:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3140243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte/pseuds/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“...children, it was the creepiest thing, these kids. And I was in the middle of a town, and they were everywhere, having fun, doing stuff, and they just started disappearing. I would look around and there were less around me, until there was none. I just heard them all screaming and screaming, it was like all of them screaming at once. And the next time I turn around, I was in the middle of the woods, and I could hear them so much louder. Everywhere. And it sounded like they were coming from the trees.” -Sleep Lab Part 2, Evan's Dream Log</p>
            </blockquote>





	Habits are hard to break.

the faces of the other children are blurry and indistinct, and he's drawn to the little one alone on the playground, the only one he can actually see.

evan can't pinpoint exactly what scares him, but he gags when it extends a tiny shaking hand towards him. its skin is soft, milky, bloodless. like egg white, like sclera. but it feels like drywall when it touches his arm, and he tries not to breathe. it smells like feces and roadkill that's been out in the sun too long, it reeks of mildew and rot, it disgusts him.

it takes him too long to realize it's a parasite.

“wanna play hide and seek?”

he nods, but it doesn't go run and hide. it stands there smiling at him as he counts to ten. unsettled, he turns away but it follows him.

it walks in his shadow, small, weak, shivering. it tells him it needs his help, it's scared, it doesn't like the tall black thing that wants to stuff their decomposing body in a plastic bag. it looks so soft and breakable, he comforts it even though it horrifies him. he holds its clammy hand and tells it the first fairy tale he can think of to calm it down. little red riding hood. it asks him to tell it again when he reaches the happily ever after.

“will you let me stay with you?” it asks, voice feeble and wobbling. “I'm scared of the big bad wolf.”

he doesn't know what to say. if he let it live with him, he'd never get the smell out of his clothing, he'd never be able to look it in the eye without grimacing. he shakes his head, and says it should go back to its own home.

it starts to scream.

he tries to placate it but it yowls like an injured cat and bites his hand. it breaks the skin and he can't get out of its grip. it bites down harder, baby teeth chewing through his skin like it's nothing. he pushes it with his other hand and it tugs and tugs and tugs until his wrist dislocates with a _pop._

he kicks it in the stomach and it crumples. he stomps its head in. it's still screaming, the rest of the playground is screaming. its skull gives in under his foot but it won't stop staring at him, wild-eyed, more disfigured than before. there's no pool of blood.

the children rush past him. they climb over the fence, fall onto the sidewalk, run out onto the street. they scream and scream and he covers his ears with his hands, shouting at them to shut up. he already tried to help one of them, and it attacked him. who cares if they get run over, who cares if they die.

when he turns his back on the corpse, he doesn't see it follow him.

the woods thrum with the sound of the children's shrieking. everywhere. but the only one he can see isn't human.

“please? will you let me stay with you? pretty please?” it asks. the plastic bags are moving. the screams are getting louder.

this time when he lashes out, it ruptures and something spills out from its viscera.

the thing crawls out on all fours. it looks like him. it fucking looks like him.

it laughs. “you win! you found me.”

“get _away_ from me.”

its laugh is his laugh, its smile is his smile. “I'm going to,” it says in his voice, “kill and eat everyone you love.”

evan wakes up in a cold sweat, coughing and dry-heaving. 

he runs his tongue over his gums and wants to spit out the ugly creature rising like bile in the back of his throat. he feels it, hot and cackling and burning _burning_ in his mouth, warm and soft like the flesh of a human baby, searing and blistering like cinder on his tongue. something's in him, eating at him, breaking him. he can feel the dream slipping away and he doesn't understand why he's choking or what the shadow on his wall is.

it stays with him.


End file.
